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#LLACareerQuestionnaire Associate Partner with McKinsey & Company Says She Would Love To Have a Lunch Date With Ibukun Awosika

Should naivety be an excuse for not understanding office politics? What do you do when you are creatively stuck? Pray? take a stroll? How do you deal with difficult bosses? Read Kemi Onabanjo’s answers to our Career Questionnaire.

What is your number one hack for dealing with difficult colleagues/bosses?

Prayer is the master key! Okay, in addition to prayer, it would be to proactively anticipate them, understand what their ‘core issue’ is and always be one step ahead. Difficult people are generally not mad, they usually have something that triggers their difficulty and it is up to you to understand and avoid that trigger, as much as you can.

2 things you do when you are having a bad day?

Listen to music and go through my media gallery for old photos/videos (just to remind myself that I have had better days and so this too will pass)

When you are creatively stuck, you…?

STOP, listen to music, get other small tasks done (this helps fuel a feeling of accomplishment) and then I try again.

2 tips for navigating office politics?

Be aware of it (naivety is not an excuse) and do all you can to ensure that you are always above board.

If you could have a lunch date with one woman you admire – who would that be and what would you ask her?

Mrs Awosika. Not sure what question I would ask, to be honest. It will be dependent on whatever phase I am in when I do meet her. I might ask something about how she has handled failure – that is not a popular line of questioning 🙂

If you could wear the same hairstyle to work everyday, it would be?

Side-part straight hair (long or short)

Your all time favorite book is..?

The answer to this should be The Bible, but errr….let’s just say I am still a Work in Progress 🙂

That lipstick hue that leaves you feeling “badass” is?

MAC’s ‘Feels So Grand’ Red (it’s the liquid Ruby Woo).

About Kemi Onabanjo

Kemi Onabanjo is an Associate Partner with McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. A proud alumnus of Covenant University, she holds an MBA from INSEAD in France, where she was elected valedictorian for over 490 of her classmates in the graduating class of 2016.

Kemi serves on several NGO boards and has participated in several fellowships. She is a regular speaker at conferences and she actively mentors young men and women on their professional journeys. In 2018, Kemi was a Future Awards Africa Nominee in the Professional Service category and was recognized on YNaija’s Power List for Corporate Nigeria. In 2017, she was also recognized as one of the top 100 inspiring women in Nigeria by Leading Ladies Africa and has received several other awards and recognitions.

Kemi actively explores the world through travel (she has visited 39 countries to date). She is also a blogger and documents her travel adventures, experiences, lessons learned and other musings at www.kemionabanjo.com

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